Quoth the beastly bird: “Aye, what do you bring me Charon? Is’t a morsel, snack, or feast? Shall I at long last have meat? You pass me by too quickly each time and I have not touched your cargo for these thousand years. I have only bones to gnaw on.”

“Nay, foul carrion,” said Farin, in Charon’s stead. “Your master’s hand has no food, for I am still living.”

And the bird did wail and lament: “Oh, Charon, hand him over.”

Charon said, “He is not mine, else I would give him,” and rowed forth, the long sinews of his arms tugging at the oars.

But Underworld’s great bird was not to be dissuaded. It haunched high up on its iron legs. Its wings spread wide, and Farin saw that they were naked and ugly.

“How deep? Shall I peel back the skin of ugliness for you, and plunge you into the heart of its fruit? Show you heathen men? Show you machinations? The hearts of all are dark in this place and God is not with us. What would you see, fair youth? I can reveal the adulteress and the liar, the depressed and the mortally proud, the unnatural fruits of false religion, the stench of men who love each other as they should love woman, the sacrifices made to idols – the idols themselves, for they burn -, men who prayed to stars and to themselves…”

Farin said, “I seek the way to the witch’s keep,” and thus Charon saw the sword of Rosgaliant.

“Aye, for what purpose, worship or slander?”

“Neither, for neither will be holy.”

“Then do you lust her?”

“As I lust for fire and brimstone; that is to say, naught.”

“Seek you -”

“- the means by which, old sailor, I may free the city of Overland from the drought to which she has accursed it.”

“Aye. Many enter by my way.”

“But I am not dead, and by grace-mercy, cannot die.”

And Farin joined Charon in his boat, and the current accelerated into a swift stream.

The Plateau was marred by three pools that had been struck into its black, charcoal-flaked earth, by the Devil’s miners in ages long gone by.

Each pool held a sinner.

The first sinner had a very red mouth, which was drawn long so that its chin rested on his tattered belly. The second sinner had a forehead so vast that it could hold a calf, and the brains bled out above the ears. The third sinner had hands that had been stretched by dark machinations to look like beastly claws, though their bearer had eaten off the flesh from their knuckles.

The sinners were bound by chains. A one-eyed beast called The Second Chamberlain held the golden key.

This is the story of how Farin freed the city that lay on the edge of the desert.

On that fated day in which Farin found the cursed city, he was wearing tall leather boots. He removed these boots and gave them to the King. Barefoot, he stepped down into the quake-made well. He found steps. They wound down and down and down some more, a stone lining into a dragon’s throat. But Farin was brave. He set off – or rather, he went down.

Thirty thousand steps below he came upon a very broad bridge. The sand that layered over the surface was gold-tinged and dull.

An Archway loomed on the far side of the bridge. He passed over the bridge, and black water lapped at his feet, from the deathly lake that rushed below. The Arch bore runes that he could not read.